most part, covered with verdure, and have, I fancy, a whinstone base, the rock of which they are composed being of various substances.  I place New Year’s Range in lat. 30 degrees 21 minutes, long. 146 degrees 3 minutes 30 seconds.  Our course next lying north-west along a creek, led us to within twenty miles of the hill that had terminated my excursion, and as I hoped that a more leisurely survey of the country from its summit would open something favourable to our view, I struck over for it, though eventually obliged to return.  From it Mr. Hume and I rode to the S.W. mountain, a distance of about forty miles, without crossing a brook or a creek, our way leading through dense acacia brushes, and for the most part over a desert.  We saw high lands from this mountain, which exceeds 1,300 feet in elevation, and is of sandstone formation, and thickly covered with stunted pine, in eight different points—­the bearings of which are as follows:—­

Oxley’s Table Land, N. 4O E., distant 40 miles. 
Kengall Hill, due E. very distant. 
Conical Hill, S. 6O E.
Highland, S.E. distance 30 miles. 
Highland, S. 30 E. distance 25 miles. 
Long Range, S. 16 E. distance 60 miles. 
Long Range, S. 72 W. distance 60 miles. 
Distant Range, S. 25 W. supposed.

It was in vain, however, that we looked for water.  The country to the north-west, was low and unbroken, and alternated with wood and plain.

The country from New Year’s Range to the hill I had made, and which I called Oxley’s Table Land, had been very fair, with good soil in many places, but with a total want of water, except in the creeks, wherein the supply was both bad and uncertain; on our second day’s journey from the former, we came to the creek on which we were moving, where it had a coarse granite bottom.  The country around it improved very much in appearance, and there was abundance of good grass on the surface of it, in spite of the drought.  On the right of this creek, a large plain stretches parallel to it for many miles, varying in quality of soil.  Near Oxley’s Table Land, we passed over open forest, the prevailing timber of which was box.  I have placed Oxley’s Table Land in latitude 29 degrees 57 minutes 30 seconds, longitude 145 degrees 43 minutes 30 seconds.

Finding it impracticable to move westward from the hill I again descended on the creek, whose general course was to the north-west, in which direction we at length struck upon a river whose appearance raised our most sanguine expectations.  It flowed round an angle from the north-east to the north-west, and extended in longitude five reaches as far as we could see.  At that place it was about sixty yards broad, with banks of from thirty to forty feet high, and it had numerous wild fowl and many pelicans on its bosom, and seemed to be full of fish, while the paths of the natives on both sides, like well-trodden roads, showed how numerous they were about it.  On tasting its waters, however, we found them perfectly salt,